The moon and stars hang in the sky far above the two of them, not that he can see the latter all that clearly. The shanties were nicer in that regard, with less light pollution, but Héctor wouldn't trade his current residence for the world. That residence being, of course, Imelda's house.

Their house.

(Except he can't truly say that yet, as much as he might wish it, for to say it would be to risk being corrected.)

Even so, Héctor can't help but look back at the house with a fond smile as he and Imelda walk away from it. For a moment he's alarmed at the sight of two yellow eyes gleaming down at him from the roof, but they blink slowly, friendly. It may take him some time yet to get used to this, as the memories still lurk in his mind of those same eyes glaring down at him as the massive cat stands between him and Imelda.

But memories are all they are, and now, there is nothing between them as his wife walks beside him, her spirit guide watching them calmly from her perch.

There's a brief touch of Imelda's arm against his, merely ghosting next to him as she moves to sidestep a rock in their path, and his long-dead heart thrills within him. He can't ignore the need to wrap his arms around her, to hold her, but he resists for now. After all, he has no way of knowing what she wants, and if she doesn't want it, he won't do it.

And in spite of the eight months they've been together, growing closer all the while, there's still something nagging at the back of his mind, something that he still doesn't wish to think about...

Imelda either senses his hesitation or he is merely lucky, for soon she reaches her hand for his, and he takes it without hesitation, a sigh escaping his chest.

For a time they are content to walk in silence, to share each other's company, their breathing matching in tempo. A light breeze picks up, whistling through Héctor's straw hat and stirring Imelda's dress, but it brings no chill with it in the warm June air.

"We should do this more often," Imelda says, and he can't help but smile down at her. "It's beautiful tonight."

"Sí, it is," he agrees. "I'll have to leave my window open when we go home."

Imelda is silent as they continue to walk, and Héctor would have been fine with that, but she speaks up again. "How are you liking your room?"

"Ah," he laughs, shaking his head. "I was just thinking about that! I miss some parts of Shantytown, you know, mostly mi familia there, um!" He cuts himself off, looking to her in alarm. "That's... my other family, not... not—"

She squeezes his hand, and he relaxes. "You were saying?"

"I was saying... it could be quite beautiful there, too. You can see all the stars, the constellations. But you could not pay me to sleep in a hammock again!" Hearing her laugh, he grins, continuing, "I'm serious! You could say, 'Héctor Rivera, you can have the keys to de la Cruz's mansion and all the riches that hack owned, but only if you sleep in a hammock' and I would throw the keys into the sea."

"Was it that bad?"

"Ay, I fell out of bed more times than I can count. Nothing to keep the cold out either. ¡Guacala!" Héctor makes a face. "No, having my own room instead of a shanty and a bed instead of a hammock is more than I could ever, ever ask for." Without missing a beat, he stops walking and looks her in the eye, a hesitant smile crossing his features. "Just like you, mi amor."

In reply, she stands up on her toes and kisses him on the cheek.

His heart nearly bursts, and it takes all of his strength not to melt or fall apart all over the sidewalk.

Before he can fully recover, Imelda tugs his hand, leading him in the opposite direction. There's a flicker of disappointment when he realizes they're heading home already. "So you're saying you like it?" she asks.

"Sí, I do," he replies, sighing as he allows himself to be led back to the house. "Still fall out of bed sometimes, but, eh, I can't complain."

"Hmm. Perhaps that wouldn't happen if you had a larger bed."

"Oh, of course! But, eh, I don't really need one, you know? What I have now is fine. Besides, putting together a new bed, bringing the mattress up all those stairs... heh, no gracias."

There's another pause before she replies. "You know I have a larger bed."

He can hear a hesitant smile in her voice, though he's not sure why. His finger brushes against his goatee in thought. "Eh... but then we'd have to move that into my room, and that would still be a pain. I'm not even sure it would fit!" He shakes his head, looking back at her. "Besides, where would you sleep, then? Would you get my old bed?"

"No, Héctor, I would be in the same bed."

"Really? But then there'd be a spare bed, and we'd be sharing a bed for no reas—"

He stops dead, his train of thought screeching and crashing violently and leaving him staring blankly ahead. "Wha-wha-wha-wait," he manages to stutter, only for he, a songwriter, a master of words, to become a broken record. "Wait wait, wait, wait... wait... w-wait, wait, wait—"

Her free hand covers his mouth and she raises a brow at him. The touch sends his phantom heart pounding, yet he backs away, his hand sliding out of hers, and tries to orient himself.

"Wait, but, I know you're... we're... ah..." He winces, gesturing frantically with his hands, not sure what to do with them. "I know we're—but you don't... you don't have to..."

Fortunately she seems to expect this, reaching for his hand again. "I want to, Héctor," she says softly.

Normally he would melt at the thought that she would want to be with him, but something else has taken hold of him, sending shivers down his spine, and not ones of pleasure.

"Do you not want to?"

"No!" he cries, horrified, taking her other hand. "No, Imelda, I..." The words come back to him, words he'd repeated often in the days they lived on the other side of the marigold bridge. "I want what you want." He shuts his eyes, trying to calm himself, before looking her in the eyes again. "It's just... been a while."

"It's been a while for me, too," she admits, and she looks away from him for a moment—could she be shy? But she looks back at him again with that same fire in her eyes he's always seen before. "I'm ready to move forward, if you are."

He's sure she can feel his hands trembling, but he nods. "Sí. I am."

"Come to my room, then, after you wash up." She's walking again, and they're not far from home, now.

"Sí, Imelda."

"I'll see you there, mi amor."

The spirit guide is still on the rooftop when they get home, her tail curled around the side of the house. As Imelda leads him inside, Héctor can feel the cat's gaze on them, and he's not sure he can feel the friendliness of it this time. Instead, he feels like she's staring straight through his thin body and into his soul, seeing him for what he really is:

A liar.

Imelda is the first to step into the upstairs bathroom, and, shutting the door, she heaves a sigh of relief. She can hide her nerves more easily than her husband can, but now she has no need to; the hard part, proposing the idea to him, is over. Now they can move forward.

As she steps into the shower, she can't help but laugh at the memory of his shocked expression. It wasn't the first time she'd seen him act like this, and it wouldn't be the last.

In life, people had warned her about marriage: how painful her wedding night would be, how, as sweet as her dear husband seemed now, he would become an animal at night, hungry and insatiable. They would point to the songs he sang, to the way he flirted with her, how it was a hint of things to come.

To her surprise (and yet, not to her surprise at all), none of it was true. For as much of a romantic as Héctor was in the open, he was shy in private. Shy, nervous, but not necessarily fearful. Indeed, what he'd told her on their walk home had rung true for most of their life: "I want what you want."

He never once bothered her when she was not in the mood, and when she was, he would do anything she asked. If it pleased her, it pleased him as well, and she could ask for nothing more.

Others disagreed. "There's something wrong with a man who doesn't want his wife," some would say. She hadn't believed them at the time, but after he'd left, those words had been the water to her seeds of doubt. Perhaps he hadn't truly been satisfied with her, perhaps he never asked her himself because he never desired her, perhaps he had found someone he did desire.

Imelda shudders, shaking off the thought, pulling herself out of the memories and into the present. No, that wasn't what had happened at all. He had always loved her; his love simply did not look the same as the love between the other men and their wives back in Santa Cecilia. She wishes she had realized that then, but that was a century ago. There is nothing to do to change the past.

But she can change things now.

She'd anticipated his nervousness, but she is prepared. Before, she would always reassure him and calm him until he was comfortable, until they were both okay with what they would do, and it will be no different now.

After finishing her shower and changing into her nightgown, she heads into her bedroom, and waits. However long it takes, she can be patient with him.

Héctor sits in his room, gripping the edge of his bed as he waits for Imelda to be done with the shower. Normally he'd just use one of the other two, but they're currently occupied; it had been bad timing when they got home. He'd graciously offered for Imelda to step in first, when in reality, it was to give him time to think about what they'd agreed to.

Liar.

He shivers, trying to focus on the situation at hand, but his mind only trips up. He should be happy that they're moving forward (and such a big step!), yet he's not. The conflicting feelings battle within him, leaving him feeling lost, blank, numb.

There's a dull, shuddering thud of plumbing somewhere in the house; the water's been turned off somewhere. With a shaky sigh, he gathers up his night clothing, waits by his door as he listens to Imelda heading to her room, and finally scurries over to the bathroom, latching the door behind him, like one being pursued by a monster.

There should be nothing to fear, and the thought makes him feel all the worse.

Forcing himself to disrobe, he steps into the shower, hoping that too much of the hot water hasn't been used. The more there is, the longer he can stay here and think.

Liar.

He pulls his thoughts away from self-accusation, trying to focus them on something more productive. What does Imelda want of him? To sleep with him, certainly. He's her husband, so of course it's to be expected if they want to rebuild this relationship once more. (Though how they are to do it is yet a mystery to him, as he stares down at his empty rib cage, and lower.) It's nothing new, either—it's what they did back then, an age ago.

Héctor closes his eyes, letting himself be taken back to the comforting darkness of their old bedroom, the scent of her hair, the soft curves of her body, the warmth of her flesh. But such things are mere background to the knowledge that they are close, that he is pleasing her, that she is happy. She is happy, and he can hold her, and he wants nothing more.

"You don't want her, though?"

Shuddering, he tries to block out the memory, yet it persists. That hadn't been the exact question posed to him that night, when he and Ernesto had more than a few too many drinks (Ernesto's choice of words had been far more crude), but it had been the gist of it. "No," he'd answered. "Not like that."

"You're either a liar or something else."

"Something else" had not been the phrase Ernesto had used, but it was the other word that had struck Héctor, the feeling that had pierced through him with horrifying realization. At the time, he had apparently cried until he'd passed out and Ernesto had carried him home; he doesn't remember that part, only that Ernesto apologized profusely the next day. But the thoughts still clung to him, the idea that perhaps the way he loved Imelda was wrong somehow, if he truly felt love for her at all.

The way a man thought of his wife was supposed to stir something within him. It wasn't untrue for him; Imelda stirred up joy within him, inspired him, filled him with music and love. But apparently that was not the sort of thing the other men talked about.

It was the topic of many songs—ones he'd sung with a laugh and a smile. He never related to them, himself; they always felt like a joke, and he treated them as such. Not until he was older did he realize that the matter was not a joke to others. It wasn't to Ernesto, and it absolutely was not to Imelda.

The realization had made him feel lost. It still does. This is a part of everyone else's lives, something people really do want, and yet... he doesn't.

He does want, though. He wants to be with Imelda, to hold her, to make her happy. He wants her. Just... not in the way everyone else seems to want. "I never knew I could want something so much, but it's true," he had penned, long, long in the past.

He wants her to be happy. Is that not enough?

Unbidden, her voice comes to the forefront of his mind, but not the soft voice during their short moonlit walk. "You left me. You left her. You left us to fend for ourselves. All you wanted was your music, your fame. And you never wanted me."

The words had struck him deeper than she had known, sending him into a spiral of depression, of long, long nights wondering if he had ever truly loved her enough, or if every feeling he'd ever had for her was misunderstood, if not outright fake.

They were long nights that have yet to end.

Liar.

The word comes back, rising like bile in his throat. "I want what you want"—no. He doesn't truly have the same wants as her; he has his own. He is false. He is a liar.

A husband and wife should be united in everything, and yet there is an insurmountable gulf between them. He can do anything she asks of him, and be satisfied. He can seek to satisfy any desires she has, and be happy. But so long as he does not want in the same way she does, they are not equal. He is not a true husband. He is not a true love.

He is a liar. A fake.

The thought chokes him, then chills him, before he realizes the water running down his bones has grown cold. Time is up, and he can no longer hide away.

He must face her, and with that, the truth. One way or another, she is going to find out that the things she had accused him of in the past were absolutely true—that he really doesn't want her. Not as a husband should.

Slowly he towels dry and pulls on his night clothing, knowing he will be expected to remove it very soon. With a sickening combination of feeling too heavy yet too light (like nothing, like numbness, not like a husband preparing to know his wife once again), he steps into Imelda's room, shutting and latching the door behind.

She is sitting on the edge of her bed when he arrives, and her head lifts when she sees him, her long hair draping over her shoulders, running down her back. For the briefest of moments the numbness flees him, and he can only stare at her in awe.

"Beautiful," he murmurs, and she smiles as she approaches him. He can't help but reach out, wishing to brush a hand through her hair, but hesitates. She steps closer, granting him silent permission, and he runs his fingers through her long, gray-streaked locks.

After a moment, Imelda takes his hand in both of hers, pulling it away from her head and holding it between the two of them. He finds himself lost in the gentle touch, in the loving gaze of her eyes. When she steps up to kiss him, he stoops down to meet her, their lips touching. Mi amor, mi vida, te amo, he thinks, or perhaps speaks. He neither knows nor cares, content simply to be with her.

"Shall we, then?"

For a blissful second he forgets what she's asking of him, and then it all comes back. The warmth within him is stripped away, leaving him with a rough chill within and without, enough to leave him shuddering.

You liar, you fake, you fraud. You mean none of those words you say to her.

Imelda is expecting an answer, and, finding his mouth dry, he nods stiffly. Seeming to sense his apprehension, she places a hand on his back. The gesture takes him back a hundred years to when he is alive, and they are young, and his nerves are frayed trying to understand what she expects of him. But her touch soothes him, and her hands and voice guide him. He remembers it vividly, the memories of the dark as precious to him as the ones in the light—they shared so many nights together back then, and he never forgot the absolute joy of it all, because he loves her.

But did he really? Does he? Can he really love her if he does not desire her?

"There's nothing to be afraid of, mi amor."

And yet he is terrified. He is once again lost, feeling rotten and shameful within. You don't know, he wants to tell her, you don't understand, but she is already guiding him to the bed, easing him onto it. He falls back onto the pillows, looking up at her, and cringes as a concerned look crosses her face.

"You're sure you want to do this?" she asks.

"I w-want... what you want," he manages to say, but unlike the many times he spoke those words in the past, there is no truth to them now. (Had there been truth to them then? He did all willingly, happily, and yet...)

Liar.

Relaxing a little, Imelda settles over him, brushing a hand through his hair. Any joy he would normally feel at her touch is long, long gone, only feeding the guilt that is devouring him from the inside. "It's all right," she whispers, though it is absolutely not. "Tell me if you're uncomfortable," she says, and he chokes back his words. Gently she begins unbuttoning his shirt, and before it's even fully off, she strokes a hand against his clavicle.

The touch sends a shock through him like lightning, and he can't stand it anymore (fake, liar, fraud), scrambling out from underneath her. She jumps back as he huddles up at the edge of the mattress, shoulders hunched, chest heaving. He can't look back at her; he can't bear to see her face.

"Héctor!" she cries, and his chest tightens at the horror in her tone. "What... why are you crying?"

Now that she says it, he realizes he's shaking in harsh sobs and unshed tears. "I'm sorry," he gasps, screwing up his face as he fights to speak. "I'm so sorry."

"Sorry?" She's bewildered, then quiet, then... "Sorry... about what, Héctor?"

Her voice is shaking, hurt, cutting into him.

"'I w-want... what you want...'" he repeats, taking a deep breath, trying to steady his breathing. "That... that was a lie. I'm sorry. I-I'm..." He can feel her shuffling over, kneeling next to him. "I know y-you want me... but... I don't want you. I can't. Not... not like that."

There's a moment of silence, and he wishes he could disappear.

"It's… it's because of who… what I am now, isn't it."

"What?" He looks at her, confused, then horrified at her pained expression. "N-no, no, Imelda."

She shakes her head. "I'm not the young woman you married—"

"No!" he cries, instinctively placing a hand on her arm, looking her in the eyes. "You are as beautiful as the day I married you, mi amor, flesh or no flesh."

Imelda returns his gaze, and he fights the urge to look away—he would never have her believe that her age or skeletal form would detract from her beauty in his eyes. In spite of everything else, this is one thing he can still say with absolute certainty.

But her pain is still there, now merely intermixed with confusion. "But… you don't want me?"

Feeling sick, he looks away, wrapping his arms around himself. "No," he says, voice barely a whisper.

There's another long pause. "Did you... ever?"

"No," he responds, and shuts his eyes.

"...Héctor," Imelda stammers, and he can't stand the tremor in her voice. She sounds horrified, and she has every right to be. "All those times, when we were alive, and you told me that... you... you didn't want to...?"

Héctor shook his head. "I wanted you to be happy. That's all."

"But Héctor, I—" Her voice catches, and he looks at her, wide-eyed. "Why didn't you say something? I never would have wanted to... to hurt you, I..."

"No, no, you never hurt me!" Hesitantly he reaches out again, shakily placing a hand on her arm, and he can feel the tension within her. She turns to look at him, wary. "I liked doing it because it meant so much to you."

Relaxing, she shakes her head. "But I don't understand. What do you mean that you don't want me, then?"

"It's like... some of the songs I used to sing with... with Ernesto," he says, the name tasting bitter in his mouth. "They talk about… you know, men wanting women. And I, eh, thought it was like a joke." Embarrassed, he runs a hand through his hair, scratching the back of his skull. "I never really knew that stuff was serious until a little before we married. The men talked about it, Ernesto talked about it... a lot." He forces a chuckle, trying to smile, but it soon fails. "But... I just never felt that way. Not to anyone, or even to you." Shaking his head, he turns away, unable to meet her gaze. "It's not how a husband should be. I... I shouldn't—"

He feels her hand against his shoulder, and gives a start, looking back at her. To his shock, she's not angry, nor is she horrified or scared.

"That sounds like what the women used to tell me," she says, sighing. "They told me that you wouldn't be the same after we married, especially on our wedding night."

If he'd still had flesh, Héctor would have been flushing in shame. "I wasn't the way they told me I should be," he mutters.

"Héctor," Imelda says softly, shuffling closer. "I liked that about you."

Shock jolts through him like lightning, and he can only stare at her, dumbfounded. "¿...Que?"

"It was something I'd worried about, back then, but you weren't anything like that. You never tried to force yourself on me or hurt me. You were always concerned about what I wanted." She's smiling at the memory, not looking quite at him, but slowly her smile fades. "But... after you left, I did wonder. I wondered if perhaps you behaved that way because... because you really weren't interested in me, and perhaps you'd found someone you did want."

"No, no," Héctor whispers, though the terrible voice inside him says yes, yes, you never wanted her. "There was never anyone else."

"I know that now." Imelda shakes her head, glaring down at the floor. "I should have known it then. I shouldn't have listened to anyone back then, anyone who told me that you'd run off—"

"You didn't know I'd died," Héctor says, though his phantom heart aches at the thought that she would think he would ever seek someone other than her. Then again, can he really blame her? He'd left, and he hadn't exactly acted like a proper husband before that.

"No, I didn't," she replies, and looks back at him, staring into his eyes once again, searching. Slowly her shoulders slump, tension leaving her frame. "But I should have known that you do love me."

"I..." She doesn't know, she doesn't understand, you're a liar, a fake. "No, Imelda, you don't get it. I'm not—"

"I don't care what the other men told you!" she snaps, and he jumps back in surprise. Heaving a sharp sigh, she shuts her eyes, gripping the edges of her nightgown for a moment. "Héctor, tell me about your songs."

Blinking, he can only stare at her in bewilderment. "Er... which songs?"

"The songs you wrote when you were a young idiot who took half a year to realize he was in love with me. The songs you tried to serenade me with, before you lost your nerve and vomited in the garden." She looks him in the eyes again, her own blazing with that familiar, determined fire. "The songs you wrote for me."

"Uh... well..." He doesn't fully understand why she's bringing these up, but he can't turn that request down. "I... I wrote Poco Loco, because... you drove me crazy, in the best ways." Slowly a smile creeps across his face. "When you kept tripping over my shoes and I couldn't decide where they should go. 'Put them on your head!' Ay! How could I not love you for that?" A genuine chuckle escapes him this time, a welcome release of tension. "I wrote A Feeling because I'd... I'd never felt like that before. No one made me feel like that, until I realized how I felt about you. It was a little overwhelming—I didn't know what else to do with it, then, so I did what I always do, and put it in a song."

For a moment he's no longer in the dark bedroom, but in the bright streets of Santa Cecilia, walking beside Ernesto and Imelda. She's laughing, though he can't remember what about. All he knows is he wants to hear that laugh, to feel that joy she gives him, a thousand times over and more. He wants it more than he's ever wanted anything in his life.

"It's what helped me realize that... that I wanted to be with you, I wanted to make you smile, I... I wanted you."

He's suddenly aware of her hand sliding into his, entwining with it. "Then, mi amor," she says, leaning close, "I think that is enough." With that, she kisses him on the cheek.

The warmth and the thrill is back, yet the voice within him refuses to be quiet. No, she's wrong, she's making a mistake. "But—"

Imelda pulls away, shaking her head, her shoulders trembling in... laughter?

"I-Imelda?!"

It takes her a moment to stop, though she still grins at him. "It's been a century, and you're still the same idiota who doesn't know when he's in love."

He grins as well, embarrassed. "Did it really take me half a year?"

"Oh, probably more. I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't composed that song," she says, leaning against him. "I would have probably had to tell you myself. I suppose I didn't really escape that, did I?"

He laughs weakly. "I... guess not." As the tension of the situation flees, so does what little energy he has, as he feels himself sagging. "Lo siento, mi amor."

"It's all right," she says, her voice growing quiet. For a moment they sit there together, alone in the darkness of the room and the quiet creaking of the house. He feels her sigh against him before she says: "Would you still like to be with me tonight?"

He tenses, blanching. "Um—"

"To sleep, cariño."

Relaxing, he nods, and the two of them crawl back to the center of the bed, slipping beneath the sheets. Soon he feels the warmth of her body next to his, her arms wrapping around him and her face nuzzled into his chest. In spite of the fact that they are bones, he can imagine them both still in the flesh, sharing the nights together as they did, so many, many years ago.

The silent, phantom tears come again as he holds her in his arms, whispering softly into her long, gray-streaked hair:

"Te amo, te amo, te amo..."

Dedicated to any aces out there who are seeking a partner. May you find someone who understands.